At this year's edition of the Nordic Film Days in Lübeck, the festival showed a selection of five films by Friðrik Þór Friðriksson produced between 1991 and 2011. His works are landmarks of Icelandic cinema. We spoke to the director about what it means to be a filmmaker from Iceland, the changes over the last decades in Icelandic film production and his sources of inspiration.

Cineuropa: The Nordic Film Days say in their press release that you are the Icelandic film director with the biggest impact on Icelandic cinema. What does it mean for you to hear that?
Friðrik Þór Friðriksson: That’s nice to hear, and it may be true because I produced so many of the films that put Icelandic filmmaking on the map. I produced and am still producing a lot of first films from young filmmakers, a lot of first films such as 101 Reykjavik by Baltasar Kormákur or Of Horses and Men [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Benedikt Erlingsson
scheda film] by Benedikt Erlingsson, for example, to only mention two. Moreover, I was the first one to have co-productions out of Scandinavia. I guess I have been a model of what is possible to do.

What does it mean for you to be an Icelandic filmmaker?
I am proud to be part of a community of excellent Icelandic filmmakers. Otherwise, I don't think that there is such a thing as "the" Icelandic film. Sure, in many films there is black humour. And we share the same cultural heritage that is based on the saga – most of the authors are inspired by the saga. The first crime story is to be found in the saga and not an invention by Edgar Allen Poe, for example. The importance of the saga might change now, since the next generation may find its inspiration in new images and stories.

What would you say are the biggest changes that occurred in the Icelandic film industry in the last decades?
In the early years of Icelandic cinema, we depended on the audience to assure the funding. So the bigger the audience for a film, the bigger the funding amount. This worked quite well at that time, because films got an audience around 40,000 – 60,000, even if you made high quality films. This changed in the meantime. It is very difficult to attract enough audience to an Icelandic film. This means that most young filmmakers need to be much more commercial or concentrate on children films. There is a mismatch with foreign productions. The government pays 25% of the budget back for foreign productions for all costs in the country. And working for a foreign production often pays well, so Icelandic crafts concentrate on that.

It's not a very optimistic view on the future of Icelandic cinema.
Actually, I am quite optimistic. We have more and more talented filmmakers. They just need better opportunities. I am pessimistic about the funding system. Especially young women go straight to TV commercials rather than independent filmmaking, because of bad payment for the development of new stories.

How is it for your own films? Did it get easier to find funding for them in time?
It's always the same, it's a battle, a war. There is less money, television in Germany was much more willing to co-produce. Now there are many young directors, I am not alone asking for money.

You learned the profession by doing. Was it your personal choice or were there just not enough structures in Iceland to learn from when you started? 
There were no film structures in Iceland when I was starting out, so I had no choice but to learn by doing, but fortunately, we now have one of the best film schools in the world in The Icelandic Film School. Its quality is very good.

When you think of the films you have done so far, which one would you say is the one that represents you and Iceland the most?
I think I would say Children of Nature, because it got an Oscar nomination and the first film from Iceland to get funding from Eurimages. It was one of the first co-productions with partners outside of Scandinavia. The film went all over, was a great success in Japan, for example, and in other places, too. Then it has also a very sentimental value, it has an autobiographical meaning. Most of the crew and actors became my friends. 

As for yourself, how do you choose your topics?
From my life experience and books written by my friends.

Where did you find your inspiration for the aesthetics of your films?
Faith and pain. You get your images inside your head. I am not someone to be influenced by paintings as others, I am more inspired by music. When I start to think of a story, I listen to a lot of music, all kinds of music.